‘Sexual orientation’ battle returns to UN Human Rights Council

GENEVA, March 10, 2011 (C-FAM) - The international movement to include homosexual behavior and identity within a new, specially protected class of rights is once more setting its sights on the UN Human Rights Council (HRC).

The EU plans on introducing a joint statement at the Council similar to a 2008 EU-led declaration calling for “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected non-discrimination categories that was submitted to the UN General Assembly and signed by 66 countries. That 2008 declaration was met with a counter statement that was introduced the same day and signed by nearly 60 countries, as well as separate statements critical of the EU declaration that were issued by Russia, Belarus, and the Holy See.

The current draft joint statement obtained by C-Fam’s Friday Fax recalls both the 2008 joint statement as well as a 2006 joint statement presented by Norway to the UN Human Rights Council and signed by 54 countries.

The 2006 Norway statement focused narrowly on the issue of violence against persons based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. The 2008 EU-led statement went much further and called for the repeal of all sodomy laws and had sweeping and ambiguous language calling for perpetrators of human rights violations based on sexual orientation or gender identity to be “brought to justice.”

The current draft statement references an address made by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the Human Rights Council in January, in which Ban stated, “I understand that sexual orientation and gender identity raise sensitive cultural issues. But cultural practice can not justify any violation of human rights.” On Human Rights Day last December, the Secretary General called for the full decriminalization of sodomy and claimed that “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” are protected categories under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was signed in 1948.

While most supporters of the new “rights” for homosexuals still claim that they are only attempting to protect against violence and gross violations against homosexuals, the application of laws in this area reveal a very different story.

In 2007, the United Kingdom enacted Sexual Orientation Regulations that effectively closed down all of the Catholic adoption agencies in the state for refusing to place children with same-sex couples.

Earlier this month, a UK court handed down a historic ruling barring a Christian couple from being adoptive parents based on the fact that they would not condone homosexuality. The court ruled that a right to religious freedom could not supersede the secular law that required non-discrimination on sexual orientation grounds. A judge in the case stated that, “the laws and usages of the realm do not include Christianity, in whatever form. The aphorism that ‘Christianity is part of the common law of England’ is mere rhetoric.”

Last year, a law in the federal District of Columbia that legalized same-sex marriage had provisions that forced the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington DC to close its child-placement services and to stop offering spousal benefits for its employees.

As in 2008, countries that oppose the homosexual “rights” agenda plan on introducing a counter statement at the Human Rights Council this month.